[intensityxx]

Being The Mistress of Questions, I find that the ones I ask are often of type that help me decide which book or series to invest my time and effort in first. With the wealth of well-read folk here, I've found their experience invaluable in making reading decisions, and because of it I almost always love what I read.

I thought maybe I'm not the only one with similar questions, so I'm starting a thread for those of us who want to ask: ......... or .........? We might ask which did you enjoy most, or even which is a better introduction to an author.

I'll start with a few of my own questions:

Which plot thread is better in Orson Card Scott's Ender's Universe:
the Shadow thread or the Ender thread?

Which is a better introduction to Neal Stephenson:
Snow Crash or Diamond Age?

Which is a better introduction to Octavia Butler:
Lilith's Brood (Xenogenesis series) or the Patternist series?

Which is a better introduction to Nalo Hopkinson:
Midnight Robber or Brown Girl in the Ring?

[Kamakhya]

Ha, I have answers to all of these questions! :D

Orson Scott Card:

Ender before Shadow. If you love Ender, and hate Speaker for the Dead, skip the third novel and move right on to the Shadow series.

Neal Stephenson:

Hands down, The Diamond Age. The Diamond Age is a better intro to his later works as well. Even with that, Chryptonomicon is way beyond either of these books. Both are great, but I think he really learned from Snow Crash and wrote a book with lovable characters and a killer plot in The Diamond Age.

Octavia Butler:

No question, go with the Xenogenesis trilogy. It is far better written and truly a masterwork of sociological SF. In fact, I would recommend this series above any of the others you have mentioned.

Nalo Hopkinson:

Brown Girl in the Ring...but to be truly honest, I really don't like her writing. If you ask me, this is not really a SF writer, but has been unfairly categorized because her fiction is not really mainstream either. I do recommend reading her, anyway, because there are few like her and she is good at what she does. It is just not my cup of tea, even though I really wanted to like her.

[intensityxx]

Great, Kamakhya :D I really want to like Nalo Hopkinson too. I enjoy the cultural twist, her blog and links. Psst, she just turned in a new book, entitled Mammalian Diving Reflex.

I sure hope others have questions too, otherwise I'll be the only question-asking fool. :o

[Zanzibar]

I'll slap one up here, if only because you asked me to :) .

Dark, gritty, cyberpunk future or Clean-cut, happy, eutopian Star Trek future?

I'll take grit over grins any day but some people like it nice, I guess.

[FicusFan]

So far I have only read the first Ender book, and found it so poorly written and only memorable for the twist/trick at the end that I may not read anymore in the series.

I have read Snowcrash and was mildly amused, and mildly offended (very sexist). I have Diamond Age but haven't read it yet. The RL SF&F group I belong to, read it before I joined and they all hated it. I will read it eventually but I am not in any hurry.

Nalo Hopkinson is also not one of my favorites. I had to read Brown Girl in the Ring and thought she had real basic problems with telling a good story. Though it isn't SF, it could be Carribean Fantasy but it just isn't written well enough to be a coherent story. It may have gotten better, but I have no interest in reading her. I have too many good writers I am interested in, to waste my time on those I know I don't like in hopes they have gotten better.

Xenogenesis is fabulous, read it before all the others. Then read the The Patternist Series . :D

[KatG]

1) I'd have to go with Ender.

2) Snow Crash is the better introduction to Stephenson, not just because I liked it better but because it has more in common with his breakout novel "Cryptonomicon" and explains why he was considered the second coming of cyberpunk. His current bestselling series, though, is closer to "Diamond Age," so take your pick. Bantam is also reissuing two sf thrillers that Stephenson co-wrote.

3) Besides some short fiction, I've only read Butler's "Parable of the Sower." I found the story poor, though she herself is an excellent writer. She is best known for the Xenogenesis series, I believe.

4) Like others, I tried Nalo Hopkinson's "Brown Girl in the Ring" and could not like it. But that was quite some time ago and I might give her another try sometime. It was her first novel, so "Midnight Robber" might be stronger.

[Rob B]

I think I've posed this question in the past a couple of times and I think Hobbit answered it in the past as well. But, I like this topic and want to keep it going so....

Is Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star more like

Fallen Dragon - I absolutely loved this one

or

The Night's Dawn Trilogy - I found this one difficult to get into.